


this night, different from all others

by Val Mora (valmora)



Series: nice jewish boyfriends [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Jewish Character, Jewish Steve Rogers, M/M, Passover/Pesach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 21:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4154022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"L'chaim," Steve offers, when the bottle comes to him, before he passes it on to Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this night, different from all others

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the usual suspect for holding my hand through this. ♦
> 
> "Thanks" doesn't quite cover my level of indebtedness to [Pargoletta](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Pargoletta/) on this one. Besides beta-reading it for not only SPAG and wordsmithing, she also brought this thing into historical and cultural compliance - any errors are definitely my fault - and over the last couple years has sat through several conversations about Jewish Steve Rogers, once when she had no idea who he was. She is a gentlewoman, scholar, and badass.
> 
> The title and a lot of the key lines in this piece are adapted quotations from the [Haggadah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggadah), for obvious reasons. If you notice any particular mistakes, let me know.

Bucky comes home with him after school on Wednesday. While Steve's looking for a snack in the cupboards over the stove, Bucky shakes the chair Steve's standing on and says, "Beans aren't allowed!" 

Steve glances down at the bowl of them soaking on the counter. Ma explained the rules to him. "It's okay. Ma said so." He finds some in the back and adds, "Just like Mrs. Rosso in 4C."

(It won't occur to him until he's twenty that his ma explained it this way so that when he told it to Bucky and Bucky repeated it to Mrs. Barnes, she'd assume Ma's family was from Spain or Italy originally, and that they kept kosher for Passover like Sephardim would.)

Bucky's eyes go big. "I'm so sick of matzah! Can I stay for dinner?"

He does. 

(Ma probably planned on that part, too.)

 

Bucky's dad reads most of the Haggadah in Hebrew, and Steve and Bucky try to follow along with what they learned in shul, heads bent together over the pages. They don't get to fight over the Four Questions – that's always gonna be little Alice, five now and just learning to read – but they like the singing, and the full cups of wine now that they're both over thirteen.

Steve's ma is out working tonight, like almost every night, but she was invited to come anyway, and Bucky made sure there was a place set for her just in case.

"That's good," Bucky's pop said, ruffling Bucky's hair. "You should always welcome guests, especially during Passover."

"Are you prepared to feed two boys all the rest of the year, then?" Bucky's ma teased, in Yiddish like she thought Bucky wouldn't understand – he _does_ , it's _useful_ to know what his parents are talking to each other about – and Pop laughed and hugged her, and said "We have three girls, don't we?"

Bucky's stomach got all warm, that Steve's always welcome, and his ma too. So he curls in closer to Steve, who's good with languages and bad with singing, and drinks wine beside him. 

 

Steve's ma dies less than a month before Passover, so Steve doesn't come to the Seder at the Barneses'. Instead, Bucky goes to him.

This has _nothing_ , hand to G-d, with whether or not Steve's keeping his ma's style of kosher for Passover. 

Bucky brings a pot of his own ma's matzah ball soup and a couple slices of sponge cake Alice gave him on the sly because she's a sweetheart. It doesn't count as breaking mourning if they don't celebrate, was Bucky's argument, and his ma was probably just looking for an excuse to feed Steve.

 _What a nice boy_ , the neighbors said to Bucky at the funeral, like they hadn't seen Steve stumbling home bloodied up every few weeks for years, and been telling everyone in hearing that he was trouble. 

"C'mon," he calls, kneeing the door because his hands aren't free to knock and the landing's sticky under his shoes. "Steve?"

The door opens. "Hey," Steve says, stepping aside to let Bucky in. His eyes are red and he's massaging his temples, so he's been crying, not that there's any shame to it. Bucky sets the pot on the divider between the sitting room and the bedroom, since Steve sold most of the furniture last month to make rent and ended up looking like he took sitting shiva a little more seriously than intended.

"Hey," Bucky says, and now that his hands are free, he reaches to squeeze Steve's shoulder. Even that much makes his heart hurt, wanting to wrap Steve up in a too-long hug, breathe in the smell of him and think about daring to kiss the collar of his shirt where he might not feel it.

"I don't need all this," Steve says. Bucky lets go of his shoulder, because he can hear loud and clear _I don't need your pity_.

"Do it for me, because I worry," Bucky says.

"You don't need to –"

"I get it from my ma, and if I come home with the pot still full of soup she's gonna kill me, so it's saving my life to eat it."

Steve snorts, mouth curling at the corners. "Sure, Buck." 

He eats two bowls, even if the last half is mostly Bucky sweet-talking him into it. He polishes off the cake just fine, though.

 

 

The Barneses leave a seat for Bucky at Passover in 1942. Steve sits at their table and chokes on the food and his shame and his missing Bucky, who's in Basic. It's been the longest time they've been apart since they met, except for that fight in fourth grade when Bucky borrowed and then lost the marbles Steve had bought with his own money three weeks earlier.

He let Bucky think he believed it when Bucky said he won them back again and gave him a new set. Because he'd been missing Bucky so bad, seeing things and wanting to tell him and not being able to, or seeing him in class and not being able to think of anything but where Bucky was in the room. Wondering if Bucky felt bad about it, because he was supposed to. Steve was as angry with him as he was missing him, and that missing made him angrier.

It feels like that, but this time he's mad at himself, and Bucky's still not there. 

 

 

"Pretty sure nobody followed us," Dum Dum says, folding down into his sleeping bag on the stone floor of the wine cellar, now that Monty's relieved him from a two-hour watch shift.

"Better to keep watch anyway, though," Morita points out. He's reading wine labels. "Oh, hey, this one looks good. Think they'll mind if we drink it?"

"I'm pretty sure the way Suzette winked at us when she said to stay warm was supposed to mean they wouldn't," Jones says. "N'est-ce pas?"

"Okay to drink, yes," Dernier agrees. "Not too expensive. Most German now." He spits.

"This one looks like it's German, yeah." Morita puts it back, not entirely gently.

"Fuck that," Bucky agrees, from Steve's left, where he's lying down on his sleeping bag. He's only pretending to read the James Thurber Victory Edition he picked up during their resupply for this mission, which is a shame. Steve's got dibs on it after him and really needs something to take his mind off _Rats, Lice, and History,_ which he just finished.

"Okay, here's a French one." Morita hands it off to Dum Dum, who has somehow caused a bottle-opener to appear in his hands. "We're drinking it."

"Might as well," Steve agrees, "as long as you can still walk in a straight line tomorrow."

"Better get drunk, then. He doesn't walk in a straight line now," Bucky jibes. 

"You're a riot," Morita drawls, and takes the first swig.

"We wanna take one up to Monty?"

They all share a look. Suzette had been looking at Monty in a very _particular_ way, so Steve doesn't think anyone really expects him to stick around after he gets relieved by Dernier.

"Nah," Jones says.

"L'chaim," Steve offers, when the bottle comes to him, before he passes it on to Bucky.

"Christ, you're a showoff," Bucky laughs, kicking him with one socked foot, mouth curled up mischievous and handsome. "If we're going there…." 

"Bucky, no," Steve groans, falling back and burying his face in Bucky's shoulder. The wool of Bucky's shirt scratches, but he's always been nice to rest against.

Bucky elbows him. "You mean _yes, Bucky, tell everyone why we should've done this five days earlier_."

"What?" Dum Dum asks, because he's a good sport.

"We're going to go blow up a Hydra stronghold on Easter Sunday, right? But Easter Sunday, it's Jesus getting resurrected, you're all saved from Hell. Wrong part of the Book." Bucky takes a long swallow from the bottle as it reaches him again.

"What Bucky means," Steve says, picking up the story for him, if only because he privately agrees, "is that Passover, which is tonight, is about the wrath of God helping deliver the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt." 

Bucky adds, "You're also commanded to drink a lot of wine."

"That's not a bad-sounding holiday," Jones murmurs. 

"It's a great holiday. Of course, because the SSR wants a nice timely Easter victory, we're missing all the Passover Seders that are being held on Uncle Sam's dime everywhere else." Bucky nudges him. Steve wouldn't be allowed to attend even if they weren't on a mission, and his dog tags say _P_ for, as he likes to say when he's feeling bitter, _Propaganda_.

At least Bucky doesn't blame him for their being in the field on the first night of Passover, even if Steve blames himself. He should've fought this one harder, to get Bucky the few extra days, to give him a little – well, not taste of home, but feeling like home's still there somewhere. His blood heats. 

"You know what?" he says. "I'm gonna spit in the Nazis' faces and have a Seder right here in occupied France, and eat trayf fucking C-rats, and enjoy it."

"I'm all for spitting in Hitler's face," Jones says. "Let's do it."

"Okay," Bucky starts, sitting up, his shoulder bumping Steve's, "remember that part of whatever Testament it is where there are a bunch of plagues in Egypt?"

"Yeah…" Morita drags the word out, uncertain.

"You're Buddhist, you don't have to remember this shit, but it's nice of you," Bucky says, waving a hand at him. "Right. It's been a while since I did this, but, y'know, stiff upper lip or whatever it is Carter says. Get your rations out, keep passing the hooch."

Steve helps Bucky talk through all the important parts, with Gabe translating into French where needed, and all together they eat.

At the end, Bucky says, holding the last of the most recent bottle of wine, "Next year in Brooklyn. Or wherever you'll go when this is over." He's looking at Steve with hope in his eyes, and it's all Steve can do to echo it instead of kissing him.

 

 

He doesn't bother, that first spring out of the ice. It doesn't seem – and who would he invite? What would be the point? All he does is remember, anyway.

 

 

"That one's for Elijah," he tells Natasha, topping up her glass so she'll stop eyeing it. She didn't have to ask who the empty place setting was for, the one he truly left the door open to, earlier in the service than you're supposed to.

Sam gets up to get thirds of the soup. "Did you make this?"

"Yeah."

"Can I get the recipe?" 

"Sure." He probably surprised Rebecca writing to ask for it: _Dear Mrs. Proctor, This is Steve Rogers, you might remember me as a friend of your brother Bucky, but I've been missing your ma's matzah ball soup pretty bad and hoped you might send the recipe if it's not too much trouble._

She sent it, whatever her feelings were about him, and if she blames him for Bucky falling off the train, then, well, she can get on fucking line.

"Is it a family one, or'd you get it off the internet?" Sam asks, swiping up a few spilled drops of broth from the counter with his fingertips and then licking them clean.

"Barnes family's. I got it from Bucky's sister."

Sam nods, sitting back down. "Can see why. Thanks. It's really good."

"Glad you like it."

Natasha puts her feet up in Steve's lap. It would've been easier for her to put them in Bucky's seat, but she didn't. Relieved, and to cover it, he starts giving her a foot massage, digging his thumbs into the arches, careful to press hard in case she's ticklish.

"I'm keeping you," she sighs, relaxing into her chair and wiggling her toes.

 

Bucky's a solid warmth all along Steve's chest and arms, gasping for breath and keening into Steve's shoulder.

Steve didn't mean – he didn't think. That's what happened. He didn't _think._ He thought this might be nice, let Bucky have something that was good when they were young. A dinner with friends. Instead it was _We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and G-d brought us out with  a strong hand and an outstretched arm_ and Bucky got up and went to the bathroom and started crying. Or something close to it, anyway, as close as he gets these days.

At least this was before the wicked fucking son with his stupid fucking being left behind – at least Bucky didn't have to hear that, because he has enough self-esteem issues without his religion telling him it might've been his own fault.

He strokes Bucky's back, thumb dragging down his spine one bump at a time. "You're safe now," he murmurs into the tangle of Bucky's hair. "You're free."

**Author's Note:**

> Do you also feel that Jewish Steve Rogers is a great idea, and wish to contribute or subscribe to the newsletter? If so, come join me on [tumblr](http://val-mora.tumblr.com).


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